Discovering Your Systemic Rage

Time To Give this Collapsing Death Cult the Middle Finger

Like all tyrannies, this economy relies on psychological and financial extortion to bully us into working for a system that bullies the planet. This chain of abuse is not only a side effect of capitalism. It is its central driving force.

Yet our dystopia is so opaque that, simply questioning it requires tremendous imagination and courage. Few dare to call out the corruption in our flimsy institutions, toxic social norms and manufactured narratives that have kept humanity locked into a path of self-destruction since the beginning. Capitalism has normalised mutual bullying and abuse in order to gaslight us into the world of work: we only stay in our soul-destroying jobs because we see everyone else do the same. Our slavery to the monthly wage disempowers us from acknowledging the level of abuse that has been built into this system over decades and centuries.

Becoming slaves to clients and overtime, forced to put on fake big smiles whether the customer is being an asshole or not, we ultimately succumb to stress and income insecurity as we develop multiple PTSD-related ailments. Many of us choose to become bullies to survive. The most psychopathic ones, usually our manager, are natural-born pros with a genetic propensity for manipulation: they have made it their life’s goal to become dedicated bullies specialising in their field. It is these ruthless psychopaths who call the shots in our politics and corporations today, feeding the cycle of bullying. Those who do it best are set to reap the greatest rewards.

But revolt against the cycle of bullying doesn’t even cross our minds, as we quickly develop Stockholm syndrome towards the very system that kidnapped us and molested our self-esteem: you need this career. You need this car. You need to live bigger, better, richer. You are nothing if you don’t become a slave to this heartless, toxic economy.

So we fall for the psychological bait: we work, we strive, we consume. We become part of the chain of bullying and natural destruction, forgetting that we are doing most of these things not for us, but to make bosses rich and species extinct. We go home, have another serving of microplastics for dinner and fall asleep, improvising in our dreams the day when we turn around to our boss and say: “You know what Darrell? FUCK YOU”. That’s when the alarm clock goes off. It’s Monday. Again. Get dressed.

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But tolerating a bully is a big mistake. It allows the bullying to continue even after the bully has left the building. The trauma is still there and will slowly boil up into an abscess of unprocessed anger unless it is opened up, cauterized and disinfected. As we grow older, compartmentalised trauma becomes an existential crisis: who am I? How did I get here? Some people call it a midlife crisis, I prefer to call it an overdue a-ha moment. It is our tired body trying to have a conversation with us. Trying to tell us to wake the fuck up.

But rather than listening to our inner voice, we follow the hoard of commuters down the escalator for one more time, down into the darkness where the trains snatch you like millipedes of the underworld, taking you straight to your cubicle. In our attempt to make our peace with capitalism, we begin to cuddle up to it. We begin to rationalise it. Worse even, we accept it as inevitable.

I refer to the type of trauma I’m describing as Systemic Trauma: the collection of stressors we are subjected to as this system tries to keep us in check and keep capitalism running: inequality, inflation, exploitation, discrimination, addiction. You may have been subjected to one, or all, of the above. Although it may be a specific person, maybe your parents or bosses who delivered the blows, it was really the system that was moving their hand with its oppressive stereotypes and prescriptions. You could be angry at an employer, friend, or family member, but most of all you need to realise that you are angry at the system. These people that abused you were probably already damaged by the system beforehand.

The healthy reaction is to be angry, very angry. You should be out there fighting back, toilet-papering your bully’s house if that makes you feel better, maybe even setting their car on fire or at least pouring a couple truckloads of fast-setting cement into their drainage system. If you didn’t do this at the time, you can still do it now, decades later! Your anger must be acknowledged and honoured, rather than stifled and strangled. By getting angry you are taking the very first step to regaining sovereignty of your emotional world from your bully. You are beginning to dig yourself out of the hole of silence they threw you in. You are possibly even doing them a favour. Maybe it will make them realise the abuse they themselves have taken from this system. Maybe they will end up becoming the best friend you ever had.

Only if humans begin to honour their anger can they revolt against this self-destructive system. Anger is a natural emotion and a vital response of our immune system which, if suppressed, can begin to take its toll on us. Anger must be lived, externalised, and expressed. Anger is not a vehicle for revenge. It is the first step in processing events and learning from them, rather than forgetting they ever happened to us. Anger helps us develop healthy new behaviours and strategies that will make us more resilient to future abuse. Processing a trauma means recognising what the bully has done to you and acknowledging what they are: a bully. Only after the anger has been processed and set aside can one finally begin to walk away, this time for good, rather than return to their trauma every few years, and to a new therapist each time.

As humanity collectively sinks into PTSD in a world of rising costs, social isolation, dopamine addiction and climate catastrophe, the surest way for things to get even worse is to either fall into despair or get angry at the wrong people. The person you should be angry at is called capitalism. It is the system that has monetised inequality, racism, sexism, addiction, genocide or any other trauma you’ve been subjected to. It is the system that threw democracy in the dumpster.

For me, it was recurring episodes of bullying I experienced within corporate life which led me to seek therapy, not knowing at the time that I was ultimately seeking help for unprocessed bullying that had begun in childhood. Having kept quiet all my life out of shame for the nasty and dehumanising names other kids called me, I never dealt with my bullying trauma, or my anger. I never cried either, because boys are not supposed to cry. I became an emotionally stunted zombie, denying myself the opportunity to process the harassment I had been subjected to, express healthy anger, and stand up to the internalised fear, shame and humiliation. I compartmentalised unpleasant feelings and false messages about myself, rather than questioning them and putting an end to them, once and for all.

I only grieved and cried for the first time 45 years after the bullying. It was like being reborn: being able to acknowledge what had happened to me, see it with more mature eyes, and finally shrug it off. The processing I went through allowed me to recount events with a whole new perspective, and prevent the past from messing with my present, ever again.

In a world that bullies us into submission from an early age, we are increasingly forbidden to get in touch with our anger: one of the most honest, genuine and galvanizing emotions that exist. Although anger is an unpleasant experience, it is also an essential one: by connecting to our anger we are beginning a conversation with the event, person or situation that caused it. We begin a long healing process. Whether it was a parent, an employer, or a life partner, anger allows us to bring them to our awareness, talk back to them and say what we never had the strength to tell them to their face, there and then.

But when will humans start talking back to capitalism? To the systemic trauma which unites us all?

It took me four decades and a fortune spent on therapy to even begin to acknowledge that I had been bullied in the first place, and that it had damaged my self-esteem and relationships with people. You see, during the 80s, you couldn’t go home and tell your mom, “mom, the other kids are calling me a faggot”, or “mom, what is a whore?” I was verbally abused for my skin colour, femininity and just about everything else from the age of five, not realising that some of these kids were actually jealous of me. Instead of standing up to my bullies, I became a “straight A” student because I thought this was the way for me to escape, leave this piss-smelling small-minded town with its small-minded people, and never come back. And I did. And I had a successful career.

But neither did I escape my PTSD, nor did I prevent myself from further bullying. Because I found out that bullying is everywhere in our world, even in the most “civilised” sectors. Bullying is rife within corporate cultures who actually endorse and encourage it through their HR and employee conduct protocols that favour bullies over victims in order to boost productivity. Employee intimidation is perpetrated by senior managers and tenured psychopaths who consider bullying an essential part of their corporate skillset. Most of all, it is perpetrated by a system that has chained us to salaries, brainwashed us into meaningless consumption, and turned us into accomplices in the destruction of the planet.

If you think you have never been bullied, you need to get in touch with your systemic trauma and discover your systemic rage: the anger which unites us, and which can be harnessed to revolt against our planetary-ending system. The time to get angry was yesterday. The time is running out, and you are not as trapped and powerless as you think. The bullies and psychopaths are out in force, using you to destroy the planet while distracting you with Netflix and air conditioning. Will you continue to let them do this?

The George Tsakraklides View is a reader-supported publication. By becoming a paid subscriber you are helping my work continue.

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